LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

“Any healthy human child exposed to language anywhere in the world will always learn language.”

Children acquire language quickly, easily, and without effort or formal teaching. It happens automatically, whether their parents try to teach them or not, through interactions, and by listening to conversations around them. They aren’t scared of making mistakes when learning. Adults, on the other hand, are deathly afraid of looking stupid! So, we protect ourselves by using a new language too conservatively or by not speaking at all... Not great when the vast majority of our speech exchanges in a foreign language force us to engage with the same level and speed of speech as native speakers.

Babies have extortionately high unemployment rates, so they just need to hang around for a couple of years not doing much of anything, and their brains take care of the learning for them. As adults, we are busy bees, and our brains are much less plastic and more resistant to change, which means we have to push them and actively learn.

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THE CRITICAL PERIOD

The critical period of language learning refers to the period of a child’s life, from birth until somewhere between age 5 and puberty (according to various experts), in which they’re uniquely neurologically prepared to acquire a language - even sign language. The main trademark of the critical period is increased brain plasticity. Neural plasticity can be defined as the ability of the nervous system to change its activity in response to intrinsic or extrinsic stimuli by reorganizing its structure, functions, or connections – basically, in a less scientific way, the brain = spongy and squishy = good at absorption and working things out!

 

Learning language as an adult will take time and active effort, but you can always teach an old dog new tricks - you wouldn’t go out on your first jog with the aim of running a marathon: so, when starting a new language, think about tangible, short-term goals that will give you a sense of achievement. Like learning how to say ‘fuck you’ in French! Certain immersive language situations can lead adult language learners to develop native-like pronunciation, usage, and even psycho-linguistic processing of a second language.

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HOW DOES TRANSLATION WORK?

There are over 7000 languages in the world. Why? Before planes, boats, and cars became a thing, the geography of the world made it painfully difficult to travel around. Europe has around 225 languages, but Papua New Guinea has well over 820 – largely because of the unforgiving geography. Only the richest of the rich could travel and spread the word (literally) and, as a result, many groups would learn to live in isolation from one another. Divided by distance, because of warfare or simply migration, and over the course of decades, they would develop their own languages that are very different from each other.

 

A team of researchers at the University of New Mexico examined 628 languages from different parts of the globe and concluded that the environment in which languages are spoken is key to their evolution, too. They found that precipitation levels and vegetation have affected the way languages are developed – particularly the use of consonants. Consonants typically have a higher frequency when spoken, in comparison to vowels, which can become more easily distorted by vegetation and rainfall. This can explain why languages in different regions, such as those covered by dense forests, are vastly different in the way they develop – favouring vowels.

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Those 7000 languages don’t even begin to include simple regional differences, or variations created just through speaking. Have y’all ever tried to listen to a northerner speaking fast? It's like an entirely different language. A dialect is a specific variety of English that differs from other varieties. English dialects may be different from each other, but all speakers within the English-speaking world can still generally understand them – generally. For many years, certain English dialects have been viewed more positively than others – judging certain dialects or accents as too posh, harsh, aggressive, unfriendly, ‘unintelligent’, or ‘common’. Many of us make assumptions based on the way people speak but no one dialect is better at communicating meaning than another. The fact some dialects and accents are seen to be more prestigious than others is more a reflection of judgments based on social, rather than linguistic, criteria.

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The use of slang over the years has also led to the development of word construction. The construction of rhyming slang, associated with East London, involves replacing a common word with a phrase of two or more words, the last of which rhymes with the original word, eventually making the origin and meaning of the phrase elusive to listeners not in the know. Sign can also be considered its own language – one who uses sign can make two contradicting statements at once, and is amazingly emotional.

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So, if it's painfully difficult for us to learn a language, how can we communicate with those who don't share our language? It is known that translation was carried out as early as the Mesopotamian era (around 2000BC) when the Sumerian poem, Gilgamesh – one of the earliest known literary writings in the world, was translated into Asian languages. The need for translation became greater with the development of religious texts and spiritual theories. As religion developed, the desire to spread the word and encourage faith means that religious texts needed to be available in multiple languages. Translating languages required a key. For example, the Rosetta Stone had the same passage written in 3 distinct languages – one of which being hieroglyphs. Knowing one of the other languages allowed scientists to figure out which symbol meant in their known language.

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That’s a bit of a dramatic, professional example – it's easy to imagine how translation and communication could have, and still does, work: Take two guys who have never met, traders or something. One guy has a sheep, and the other a cow. The cow guy wants the sheep but can't speak the sheep guy's language. So he points, right? After a minute or two, the sheep guy gets the idea that the cow guy wants to buy the “mouton". The sheep guy points at the cow and says “Kuh". They guys trade animals and move on; now each knowing a single part of the others language. The sheep guy knows Kuh means cow; the cow guy knows Mutton means sheep.

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Some words, however, are borrowed, such as ridicule, ballad, and debris. These words are not English and have not been translated, but borrowed from their counterparts and used in the same way. But what about words that are seemingly untranslatable? That have no English counterpart? For example, can you think of just one word to mean the essence put into your work? You might say that you “put your heart and soul” into something, but in Greek, this is simply called Meraki. Untranslatable words highlight the diverse nature of the human experience – only one who has truly experienced and learned the meaning of Meraki can use the word.

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There have also been attempts to control language in order to create a ‘common form’. Controlled natural languages are subsets of a language (usually English) that is obtained by restricting grammar and vocab to extremely simple words and phrases in order to reduce complexity. Traditionally, controlled languages fall into two major types: those that improve readability for human readers (e.g. non-native speakers), and those that enable a reliable automatic semantic analysis of the language. One of the most used CNLs’ is Seaspeak or Standard Marine Communication Phrases. Formed in 1983, and based on the English language, it is used at sea for captains (wherein 80% of crew don’t speak English – partly because it was the most common language spoken at sea at the time; partly thanks to eurocentrism) to communicate with those whose native tongues differ.

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LOSING A LANGUAGE

“How many other traditions or stories are out there in the world that we’ll never know about because no one recorded them before the language disappeared?” 

With all these methods of translation and communication, how on earth do languages become extinct? Linguists estimate that of the world’s approximately 6,900 languages, more than half are at risk of dying by the end of the 21st century. Sometimes languages die out quickly. This can happen when small communities of speakers are wiped out by disasters or war. In El Salvador, for example, speakers of the indigenous Lenca language abandoned it to avoid being identified as Native after a massacre in 1932 in which Salvadoran troops killed tens of thousands of indigenous persons in order to suppress an uprising.

 

Most languages, though, die out gradually as successive generations of speakers become bilingual and then begin to lose proficiency in their traditional languages. This often happens when, sadly, speakers seek to learn a more-prestigious language in order to gain social and economic advantages or to avoid discrimination. Modernity and globalization have strengthened these forces, and peoples around the world now face unprecedented pressure to adopt the common languages used in government, commerce, technology, entertainment, and diplomacy, in order to avoid miscommunication.

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Languages are conduits of human heritage. Writing is a relatively recent development in our history (written systems currently exist for only about one-third of the world’s languages), so language itself is often the only way to convey a community’s songs, stories, and poems.

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There are many ways we can attempt to save an endangered language:

- Social media provides the opportunity for speakers of different languages to connect with each other—no matter where they are around the world. These mediums also allow speakers to create video, textual and audio records of their language, accessible across the globe e.g. endangered poetry project

- Easy access to good interpreting or translation services can help. By being available 24/7 via mediums such as the phone or internet, interpreting services can ease the worries of people that speak indigenous languages. 

- Detailed documentation creates a concrete record and allows new speakers to learn the language without having to decipher it themselves.

However, linguists argue it is probably too little, too late. UNESCOs 'Atlas of Endangered Languages' features over two hundred pages of endangered languages. Of these two hundred pages, only two languages have been brought from the edge of extinction. despite extensive effort.

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So, we need to learn how to effectively interact with those whom we do not share a common language or communication method with...

Alternate communication has been a thing for years; it just needs to be taught and learned.

 

Morse code, sign language, and gestures are just a tiny group of examples that can be used as alternate communication methods – however, each party needs to share a common language or understanding of a scenario in order to understand what is being suggested. Sign language can be taught in ASL or JSL, this morse code:  .... . .-.. .--.  means ‘help’ in English but is gibberish to someone who speaks French, and to a scuba-diver a thumbs down means your doing great and want to carry on! So, alternative communication may never be a true replacement for understanding one's language, but what if that’s all we’re left with?

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The English language has survived for about 1500 years in a recognisable form, despite enduring major threats to its existence. All languages gradually and naturally change until eventually the current form would be unintelligible to the speakers of an older form, ergo, Angles and Saxons would not understand modern English and, conversely, we cannot understand Anglo-Saxon.

 

One language dies every 2 weeks, so its not a stretch to assume even the most used language will distort or die - they could be simplified versions of what we recognise today, but either way, they’ll go. It is predicted that even the most advanced translation tools will not be able to comprehend our language in years to come. Ostler, a linguist, reckons that by 2060, there will not come a time in which one person doesn’t understand the other – whether this be because of the increase in bilingual persons, or the demise of all-but-one language.

 

In the unlikely scenario language fades entirely, we would be communicating through gestures. We would have to devise a new gesture for every emotion like anger, sadness, joy, and the world would be less “noisier “ or absolutely noiseless due to absence of language.

 

How can we pass on messages to the future of danger? Or love? Of humanity?